It was the goal that was to launch Cheltenham Town on a still scarcely believable run of success that stretched over the best part of two decades.

Jason’s Eaton’s header in the FA Trophy final against Southport on that wonderful May day at Wembley in 1998 was the start of a remarkable period for the previously unfashionable club. It saw them win promotion to the Football League, reach play-off finals at Cardiff and Wembley, play in high profile cup games against the likes of Spurs, West Ham and Newcastle and reach the heady heights of League One.

Eaton, now 48, had, of course, already established himself as one of the best strikers to ever pull on the red and white shirt of Cheltenham after joining the club in August 1992.

But that goal at the home of English football – it was the only one of the game – ensured his place in the club’s history and it is a goal that is still talked about by many of the club’s fans today.

For those supporters too young to remember one of the defining moments in the club’s past, the goal came in the 79th minute. Eaton’s great mate Jimmy Smith had been fouled on the right and fellow substitute Russell Milton swung the resultant free-kick over with that cultured left foot of his.

The ball had Eaton’s name all over it and the in-form centre-forward didn’t disappoint as he stole in at the far post to head home. It’s a goal that remains fresh in Eaton’s memory today.

“When the ball was coming to me, I was thinking, ‘This is my time’,” said Eaton. “It was meant to be. I scored the goal and then after the game everyone wanted to know me. It was surreal to be honest.

“All the way along during that cup run I felt that it was my time. I’m not religious or superstitious or anything like that but I remember coming on as sub in the first leg of the semi-final against Dover and scoring two goals and thinking it was just meant to be.”

So what gave him that something extra that was to transform him from a being very good Cheltenham Town player to a club legend?

“Keith Knight’s shinpads,” he laughed. “I’d forgotten to bring mine for one of the early rounds in the competition and Keith lent me a pair of his.

“I played well and I borrowed Keith’s shinpads in every round after that. They were my lucky shinpads!”

All successful sportsman need some luck along the way, of course, and Eaton was given a lucky break right at the start of his career when Bristol Rovers came knocking on his door.

Not that it was an easy decision to throw in his lot with a club who up to then had always been seen as the ‘enemy’ by the Bristol City-supporting Eaton.

“Yes, it was difficult,” Eaton recalled. “A friend of the family knew someone at Rovers and said I was worth having a look at. He said I’d got something about me.

“I’d always scored goals for my school and club teams and I was playing senior football for Alveston in north Bristol when I was 15.”

Rovers liked what they saw in the young Eaton and by the age of 16 he was part of the club’s youth set-up, playing part-time under the watchful eye of future Cheltenham manager Lindsay Parsons.

Alongside him in that team was another player who was to go on to write his name in Cheltenham Town’s history books – Lee Howells.

Like all young players, a career in football was the dream for Eaton but he had a wise head on young shoulders and knew nothing was certain in a game that is littered with broken dreams.

“I’d always targeted football but I also trained as a brickie. Not a lot of people know that I am actually a qualified brickie,” he said with some pride.

Eaton, however, was soon cementing his place in the Rovers youth set-up and he has many happy memories of those days.

“We played in the South East Counties League,” he said. “It was a decent league and we played the likes of Tottenham and Chelsea. It gave us a good grounding because we’d turn up to all these training grounds in our little minibus. They used to call us ‘Rag Arse’ Rovers!

“But we were never overawed. It was a good set-up and I remember we had a really good run in the FA Youth Cup when we beat Spurs.”

Eaton was making progress and his performances had been noticed by the people that mattered at the club, so much so that at the age of 17 he was offered a one-year contract by then boss Gerry Francis.

“It was great,” said Eaton, “and I got to play a couple of games in the first team.”

Not that his debut will go down as one of his career highlights.

“I came on as a sub at Southend,” he recalled, “and gave away a penalty for handball. It was never a handball! They scored to make it 4-1 and they went on to win 4-2.”

In those days league rules prevented clubs from populating their benches with multiple substitutes so first-team opportunities were limited for up-and-coming players like Eaton.

And the beautiful game was to turn ugly for the striker at the end of that first season when Rovers decided not to renew his contract.

“That was a bit of a surprise, yes,” he admitted. “I thought I’d done okay but there were a lot of strikers at the club – Christian McLean, Devon White and Gary Penrice. Martin Boyle was also there as well.”

Despite his disappointment Eaton has fond memories of his time at Rovers – and of one player in particular.

“Ian Holloway was really good to me,” he said. “My dad had three heart attacks while I was at Rovers. It obviously affected me but Ian would ask me every day how he was.

“He took time out to take me under his wing and that meant a lot at the time. I will always remember that.”

Eaton’s footballing journey took him to Clevedon Town where the goals soon started to flow. He spent a month at Trowbridge Town and word was getting about on the south side of Bristol that there was a young striker who had an eye for goal.

Bristol City invited him for a trial and he impressed to such an extent that their manager Joe Jordan asked him to sign for half a season.

Within weeks he was making his first-team debut for the club he had supported since he was a boy, going on as a substitute against Wolves at Molineux.

But, just like his Rovers debut a year earlier, it was to be an inauspicious start for the young Eaton.

“I got crocked,” he said. “Floyd Streete came through the back of me and I left the ground on crutches. I remember my mum and dad had to pick me up in their car.”

Eaton managed one more game before the end of the season against Sheffield United but was given more chances the following campaign, clocking up close to 20 first-team appearances.

One game in particular stands out.

“It was against Notts County in 1991 and I scored my first goal for the club,” he said. “I can still remember it now. The cross came in and I controlled it on my knee on the edge of the box before sweeping it in with my left foot.

“We won 4-2 and it was a good win because we’d been struggling a bit and it relieved some of the pressure.”

In those days Eaton was competing for a starting place with the likes of Robbie Turner and Bob Taylor – “He was one of the best strikers I’ve ever seen,” Eaton said of Taylor – but he didn’t have far to go for advice on the art of centre-forward play.

“Joe Jordan was very good to me,” said Eaton. “I got on well with him even after he’d left. His sons Tom and Andrew always said I was like another son to him.

“I learned a lot from him and I’ll always remember his training sessions because everyone wanted to be on his side.

“He’d take his teeth out and really get stuck in. He was proper old school and fitness was a big thing for him. We used to go for a lot of runs.”

Eaton’s spell in the full-time game was coming to an end and although he enjoyed it he says he didn’t miss it when he left to play non-league football.

“The pro game is more difficult,” he said. “A lot of the players only look after themselves. Quite a lot of them were selfish and I felt it was too easy at times for some of the older players to blame the younger ones if things were going wrong.

“Everyone is much tighter in non-league football.”

Eaton’s return to the non-league circuit saw him make a £10,000 move to Gloucester City where businessman Les Alderman had ambitions to take the club into the Football League.

“I had a couple of really good seasons there,” said Eaton. “It was a good, well run club. Brian Godfrey was the manager and he was real hard core. He was passionate and intense. The club spent some money and we had some good players – Steve Fergusson, Brendan Hackett, Steve Talboys.”

The promotion dream was never realised, however, even though they went very close and after two years Eaton was on the move again, this time to Gloucester’s long-term rivals Cheltenham in a deal worth £15,000.

Now it may not be a rivalry to match that of Arsenal-Spurs or Rangers-Celtic, but Gloucester and Cheltenham fans have historically never been the best of buddies, something Eaton was about to find out.

“It was horrendous,” he admitted. “I didn’t realise the extent of the rivalry between the fans. The Cheltenham fans were fine right from the start but I got a lot of stick from Gloucester’s fans whenever we played them.

“I always did quite well against them as well and scored quite a few goals.”

In those days, the two clubs had the same ambitions – a place in the top tier of non-league football. Lindsay Parsons was in charge at Whaddon Road and was one of the main reasons Eaton made the short drive up the A40 from Gloucester to Cheltenham.

“I wanted to get back with him,” Eaton said. “We had a good team with a nucleus of good players – Jimmy (Smith), Bob Bloomer, Lee Howells. Then Jamie Victory came in, Duffo (Michael Duff), Boka Freeman, Chris Banks, Keith Knight, Darren Wright, Steve Book, Russell Milton.”

Good players all of them, but the Parsons years were not to prove successful in terms of winning promotion to football’s ‘fifth division’ although there were several very near misses.

Eaton, however, has good memories of this period and particularly his partnership with Jimmy Smith.

“We played as a team,” he said. “We weren’t the biggest but I’d do the hold-up play and Jimmy would zip around the box.

“Jimmy had this trick in the box that always sent defenders the wrong way. I’d know what was coming and he always found me in the six-yard box. We scored a lot of goals together and we had a lot of fun.”

The arrival of Steve Cotterill as manager of the club in the 1996/97 season was to turn the team of ‘nearly men’ into a team of winners almost overnight.

“He had such a passion for football,” Eaton recalls. “He lived and breathed the game. His whole persona, the way he was, impressed everyone. His man-management was a different level and he was smart in a football sense too, He brought in good players and we all looked up to him.

“He knew how to get the best out of players. We were winning games and we used to go out on the pitch thinking we couldn’t get beaten. He instilled that into us and we all respected him.”

Promotion to the Conference was followed by that ground-breaking FA Trophy win in a season which also saw them end the campaign as the second best team in non-league football, a season that saw Eaton score a hat-trick against eventual champions Halifax Town in a 4-0 win.

The success, of course, meant new players, a higher profile and greater expectations.

Dale Watkins was brought in at the start of the 1998/99 season to forge a new strike partnership with Eaton and they gelled pretty much from the start.

“Yes, it was tougher because there was more competition for places,” said Eaton, “but I still felt very much part of it.

“Dale and I had a good relationship and we hit it off quite quickly. He was a good player. He was quick and scored some great goals.”

The arrival of the likes of Neil Grayson and Dennis Bailey meant even greater competition for places – “It was understandable the club wanted to change things around,” said Eaton, “we accepted it.”

But as a place in the Football League moved closer, the then 29-year-old Eaton knew that he was nearing the end of an era.

Promotion to League Two would mean full-time football and at his age, Eaton, who had a good job as a duty manager at a health club, was unable to make that commitment.

“I knew if we got promoted it broke up everything,” he said. “The club wanted the golden ticket which was promotion to the Football League but it was a difficult time for players like me.

“I’d spoken to Steve and told him I couldn’t go full-time. I was gutted and I did shed a tear. I’d been there since the start and to know that a lot of the players and backroom staff would still be there and that I wouldn’t was tough.”

Eaton’s final season with the club had been hampered by a hand injury but he was fit enough to take his place in the starting line-up for the final game of the season against Hayes.

With promotion already secured, Cotterill’s skills as a manager of men again came to the fore.

“He wanted to play the players who had been with the club for a long time and who had done so much along the way,” said Eaton. “It was a chance to say thank you and it was a very nice touch.

“We weren’t on a lot of money but looking back, selfishly, we were started something that went on and on at the club.”

After Cheltenham, Eaton enjoyed spells at Yeovil Town. where he played alongside another Cheltenham promotion hero Dave Norton, and Forest Green Rovers.

Norton was also a team-mate at Forest Green, as was current Rovers boss Mark Cooper – “I enjoyed playing with Coops,” said Eaton.

Spells at Merthyr Tydfil and Bath City followed before Eaton, now a director of a health club in Bristol and Birmingham, returned to Clevedon. He hung up his boots at the age of 38.

These days his only involvement in football is watching his eight-year-old son Louie playing for Yatton on Saturday mornings – “although they have asked me to coach the youngsters” – before heading off to Ashton Gate in the afternoon where they are both season-ticket holders.

Eaton looks back with pride on his football career.

“When I was young I wanted to play for Bristol City, play at Wembley and play a representative game for England and I achieved all three,” he said. “I ticked every box.”

It was that day at Wembley, though, that was the highlight of his career.

“That was such a big thing,” he said. “It still means a lot today. I’ve got the pictures up on my wall at work and I tell the young boys, ‘This is what your boss did!’.

“I can still remember it like it was yesterday. The build-up – we made a record – and everything that went with it meant there was a different type of pressure. It was mental as well as physical.

“Then the day itself. I remember it was roasting hot and to see so many people from Cheltenham there was unbelievable. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

“The surface was completely different to anything we’d played on and it took a bit of getting used to it.

“It was exhausting and at the end we were absolutely drained.”

A party back in Cheltenham that night preceded an open-top bus tour around the town the following day when pretty much every man, woman and child turned out to hails their new heroes.

“The amount of people who came out was brilliant,” said Eaton. “That open-top bus tour was for Cheltenham. It wasn’t just football, it was giving the people of Cheltenham something. It was special.”

What made it even more special for Eaton, of course, was that the success was achieved with his mates. He still keeps in touch with the likes of Jimmy Smith, Lee Howells, Bob Bloomer and Steve Book, and ask him what he misses most about football and he says without a moment’s thought: “The banter.”

“We were all mates and we all felt for each other,” he said. “It was the best time I had in football. We used to go on tours and it was just a great time.

“I remember the one time we were on a mid-season break in Marbella. We were walking along this road and there was a barrier at the end of it which was dropping down quite slowly.

“We could all see it coming down except Jimmy who just kept on walking. Of course the inevitable happened and the barrier hit him on the side of the head. He got quite a bad cut by his eye.

“I’m laughing now when I think about it. Jimmy could always see a goalscoring opportunity but he never saw that barrier!”